ARKEA-B&B HOTELS

The dream of a territory (which was annexed to France in 1532 but has retained its distinct flavour) ever since Hinault retired came true in 2014 with the Tour de France debut of Bretagne–Séché Environnement, an unabashedly Breton team whose main sponsor was the regional council, headed by the politician and great cycling aficionado Jean-Yves Le Drian. Going into the Grand Départ from Yorkshire, it was the first regional team from the West (more specifically, South—South-West) to take part in the Tour de France since 1961.  

Its passion for cycling and four Tour winners (Lucien Petit-Breton, Jean Robic, Louison Bobet and Bernard Hinault) make Brittany a hotbed and, in some way, the cradle of French cycling. However, the last time a Breton rider wore the yellow jersey was Stéphane Heulot in 1996. Before signing for the team from his home region, Warren Barguil ended a 23-year drought in Foix in 2017, when he became the first Breton to win a stage since Pascal Lino in 1994.   The team was born in 1994 as an amateur outfit on the initiative of industrialist and cycling lover Jean Floc'h. It became a professional squad in 2005, entered the second division of the sport in 2011 and was promoted to the WorldTour in 2023. Bretagne–Séché Environnement evolved first into Fortuneo and later into Arkéa, joining forces with a succession of partners.

The two title sponsors have been based in Brest ever since B&B Hotels came on board. The team turned heads in its first Tour de France starts thanks to joining numerous breakaways, Brice Feillu's sixteenth place overall in 2014 (an exploit he matched in 2017) and the striking disqualification in 2015 of its Argentinian leader Eduardo Sepúlveda, who lost his nerve after a mechanical problem and hitched a ride in a car, not to mention the British sprinter Dan McLay bursting onto the stage with third place in Montauban in 2016. Hiring the sprinter André Greipel turned out to be a big mistake, but Warren Barguil won the French championship and finished tenth in the 2019 Tour in his return to the roots.

Signing Nairo Quintana in 2020 took the Breton team to a whole new level, but the Colombian's first two participations in the Tour with Arkéa–Samsic were nothing to write home about (17th and 28th). In 2021, he wore the polka-dot jersey for five days. In 2022, he seemed to be back to his usual self, landing sixth place overall, but his disqualification following the detection of tramadol in his system relegated him to the sidelines for a year. The Breton brigade's top result in the 2023 Tour was Luca Mozzato's fourth place in Bordeaux. In 2024, at long last, their homegrown talent Kevin Vauquelin opened their account with a divine move on the slopes of the Sanctuary of the Madonna of San Luca in Bologna (stage 2). A week and a half later, Arnaud Démare charged through the finish line in Villeneuve-sur-Lot (stage 12) in second place, only to be relegated for irregular sprinting.